7 arrested on hate crime charges in Amish hair-cutting case

The FBI arrested seven Ohio men on federal hate crime charges in connection with a bizarre series of Amish hair-cutting attacks, the Associated Press reports.

The accused are members of a breakaway Amish group in eastern Ohio that has forcefully cut the beards and hair of several Amish men and women in recent months in a doctrinal dispute.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Cleveland says the men are expected to be arraigned today.

FBI agents and Jefferson County deputies swept into the Amish sect's compound in the village of Bergholz, Ohio, around 6 a.m., the Pittsburgh Post-Gazettereports.

Those arrested included Sam Mullet, 66, and three of his sons, Johnny, Lester and Daniel, as well as a nephew, Eli Miller, and a minister, Levi Miller. Also arrested was Emanuel Shrock, implicated in the most recent attack in October.

Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry, the AP notes.

After Jefferson County authorities arrested three men, including two of Mullet's sons, on state charges in October, the AP spoke with the elder Mullet. Here is an excerpt:

Mullet said the goal was to send a message to Amish in Holmes County that they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they were treating Mullet and his community.

Mullet said he didn't order the hair-cutting but didn't stop two of his sons and another man from carrying it out last week on a 74-year-old man in his home in rural eastern Ohio.

"I didn't order anything like that," he said but added, "I didn't tell them not to. I'm still not going to tell them not to."

Mullet said the Holmes County group changed the rulings of the church and were trying to force his community to change.

"We know what we did and why we did it," he said outside his house on the outskirts of Bergholz, a village of about 700 residents. "We excommunicated some members here because they didn't want to obey the rules of the church."

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